Rabiu Kwankwaso has been a force to reckon with in the politics of Kano state and this has given him a fair piece of relevance at the national stage. From his stint as a two-term Governor of the state to serving as the country’s Defence Minister, to retiring to the Senate and vying for the Presidency, Kwankwaso’s political CV reeks of influence.
But there is a growing fear that the influence of Kwankwaso might wane after he dumped the major opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) last week.
POLITICS NIGERIA had reported the defection of Kwankwaso from PDP which the Kano statesman blamed on irreconcilable differences. The former Governor, while receiving his NNPP membership card from his ward chairman in Abuja on Tuesday, said he left the PDP because he was not valued there.
“We had a situation in April last year where zonal positions were being shared among the states and all leaders in the six other states were given the opportunity to nominate. But in Kano, some people felt I wasn’t that important so they had to do what they did.”
“That is what triggered the issue (defection) and I spent almost a year now waiting for PDP to talk to me, even the new leadership, to come and talk to me; they didn’t want to talk to me,” he said.
“For that reason, I felt there are irreconcilable differences between my humble self and many other leaders and they are mainly based on ideology.”
But the spokesperson of the PDP, Debo Ologunagba, while reacting to Kwankwaso’s move, said the party had already kick-started the reconciliation process when Kwankwaso headed for the exit door.
“We have set up a special Committee comprising the NWC of the Board of Trustees, the National Working Committee and of course the Governors’ forum. That is just almost a standing committee. Only last week. I wish this was considered yesterday,” Ologunagba said on Arise TV.
He also noted that the reconciliation is not a 100-meter race but a marathon. Nevertheless, Kwankwaso, who was PDP presidential aspirant in the 2019 elections has been handed the wheels of NNPP and also being tipped to contest the 2023 Presidential election under the same party.
Historical antecedents
To analyse Kwankwaso’s future is to take a cue from his pasts and present. It should be recalled that the Kwankwasiyya leader was a member of the APC, the party under which he was elected to the Senate in 2015.
However, he left for the PDP when it was obvious he could not clinch the Presidential ticket from President Muhammadu Buhari in 2019
As soon as he joined PDP, hoping that he would be the party’s flag bearer, he lost the primaries to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.
It’s logical to conclude that his Presidential ambition contributed to the gradual but systematic loss of his home base after the 2019 elections.
During the 2019 general elections, Kano state was a battleground for both the ruling APC and the PDP. Although very tough, the APC was able to defeat Kwankwaso’s PDP because the number of cancelled votes was higher than the difference in lead votes scored between the two leading candidates: Abba Yusuf (PDP) and Abdullahi Umar Ganduje of the APC.
Recall that Ganduje had won his first term under APC with the support of Kwankwaso. However, since Ganduje’s reelection, the APC has gained a stronger momentum in Kano state, challenging Kwankwaso’s structure head to head.
What’s the fate of Kwankwaso in NNPP?
Considering the fact that NNPP is not as popular as the two major parties — APC and PDP, the Presidential ambition of Kwankwaso may be dead on arrival. Also, he’s currently the most influential member of the party but that may not be enough to garner millions of votes needed to occupy the Presidential seat.
It is also worthy of note that some of Kwankwaso’s allies that formed his political base have refused to defect to NNPP. For instance, Yusuf Dambatta, a one-time Commissioner for Land in Kano State and former associate of Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, alongside some stakeholders of the Kwankwassiya faction, has declined to defect from the PDP.
In an interview granted recently, Dambatta opined that Kwankwaso would fail in his new party.
“Let me say that when his political conception was at its infancy, some of us made efforts to meet Senator Kwankwaso, to dialogue with him on the way forward and to advise him appropriately. But we were unsuccessful.”
“It did not work because he has already decided on the direction of things and the direction to go. He has already made up his mind to champion the new movement.”
“We met him a long time ago, even before he convened the meeting of the National Movement in Abuja. We met him again during the congress of the aborted North -West PDP, sometime last April, when there was this chaos between our faction and the mainstream PDP in the state.”
“We had our candidate and they had theirs and we felt that there was a need to carry everybody along, that PDP does not belong to a single individual,” he said.
But a public affairs analyst, Hamma Hayatu, has stated that Kwankwaso’s fate is dependent on the zoning arrangements of other parties.
” Voting is mostly done based on sentiments in Nigeria, either ethnic, regional or religious. Only a few vote based on competence, another few vote on self interest. Should PDP and APC zone their candidate southward believe me most core northerners will vote kwankwaso in NNPP,” he wrote on Twitter.
